The campus community is invited to one of the nation's first campus screenings of a new film about a company's relentless pursuit of AI creations that match or surpass human abilities.
The Thinking Game film screening
Thursday, Oct. 17
Turner Theatre (Schar Hall 101)
7-9 p.m.
Hosted by the Office of the Provost and Mustafa Akben, Elon University’s Director of Artificial Intelligence Integration
In the race to create Artificial General Intelligence, one company stands at the forefront of innovation: DeepMind.
Invite your friends and colleagues to a screening of “The Thinking Game”, an 83-minute documentary that will take you inside DeepMind’s London headquarters, where founder Demis Hassabis and his team relentlessly pursue the creation of AI that matches or surpasses human abilities across a wide range of tasks.
Filmed over five years, the documentary captures pivotal moments, including the groundbreaking achievement of AlphaFold, a program that solved a 50-year grand challenge in biology.
Reflection from Emmy-winning filmmaker director Greg Kohs
“From the outset, our primary challenge was finding a way to present complex scientific ideas and discoveries in a way that a general audience could understand. During filming, we discovered that the language of science is often unspoken. It was not unusual for a room full of scientists to suddenly fall silent for several minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. These moments of quiet contemplation and focused introspection were masterclasses in the art of silence.
“As I became attuned to this unspoken scientific language, I trained my lens on the silent human clues that would help create a bridge between the science and our audience: the furrowed brow of frustration, the quizzical look of confusion, the bright eyes of excitement, the pursed lips of skepticism, and the distant gaze of deep disappointment.
“Gradually, I felt less intimidated and more at home in this world of science. Although much of the scientific jargon still went over my head, the raw emotions were undeniable.”
